Star Control Origins Beta

Star Control Origins Beta

I'm a hardcore SC2 player. I bought the original game on floppies soon after it came out, the first game I actually bought, ever. I played it so many times over the years that when I eventually lost the map, I was still able to get in consistently by just knowing enough star coordinates from memory. Now that I've established my otaku credentials...

I am looooooving the new melee, in the context that it is a beta and will only get better. Here are some things I'd love to see:

Melee just isn't melee without at least the original, core SC1 ships, if not the whole complement of SC2 ships.

While I find the new battleground concept intriguing (the asteroid barrier, etc), I have some thoughts:

It should be a much bigger battleground for the current scale of ships, planet, planet gravity and ship vectors

You should be able to toggle back to something at least similar to the SC2 battlefield, as there was a lot of strategies specific to that wrap-around style (like accelerating to infinity and beyond via gravity slingshot)

Where's the cool little alien pilots doing their thing in the sidebar as you fly the ships?! That's classic!!

The fleet editor is a little clunky. Consider allowing use of the "delete" key to remove the first (or selected) ship

The earth ship missiles used to have much better tracking and range, making that ship at all playable. Granted, new earth ship does seem much faster and more maneuverable, but if you just can't hit anything, what's the point? You used to be able to compensate for the maneuverability by slingshotting the planet before you were completely destroyed (example of the benefits of the old style battlefield), then time the launching of your missiles etc. Currently the ship is almost useless

A vs. game mode that somehow allows players to ban a ship type and adjust their fleet to adjust for a banned ship type would be very nice

A "quickie" vs. game mode that allows a smaller max of points would be very cool (maybe 20 pts? So if you choose a big bad, you had better be VERY good at it)

Where's the "?" ship selection when in battle?! Bring it back!!

Some ships deploy stuff - it would be nice to have an indicator of how many whatevers out of however many possible whatevers have been deployed, even if it's just a vague meter.

Something seems off with the planet gravity.. it's just not quite right?

As for crafting.. I have a lot of questions, but my first main frustration with it is that I don't see any controls to turn the perspective of the whole ship around, so I can see if I truly have everything lined up correctly.

Lastly, thank you sooooooooooo much for bringing this back! I've seriously waited almost 25 years for this!

The audio just seems lacking. When you deploy something there is no sound, when a bullet hits a ship there is barely any sound. In SC2 when you hit a ship you could clearly hear it. Without the hit-sound i find myself constantly looking at the ship portrait to see if I am actually doing any damage.

Some good feedback. Here are a few responses that I hope you find helpful:

While we don't currently intend to include any ships from Star Control I, II and III into Star Control: Origins at this time, we will be continuing to release new ships frequently. Broadly speaking, we have approximately 28 ships in mind before release of which a given fleet is going to typically be able to fit around 8 ships. This number will continue to grow after release.

The current battle arena is just a "generic" starting point. We expect to start releasing additional arenas within the next month or two with bigger (and smaller) sizes along with interstellar battles (where you have wrapping).

Fleet editor very much in beta. Good feedback!

As for the Star Control Cruiser (Earth's current "top of the line") ship, I don't want to say "get gud" but most of us consider it one of the more deadly ships in the game right now.

Custom multiplayer (and single player) matches are on the horizon. That will let players set point counts for fleet building, ban weapon types, choose arenas, gravity, etc.

Thanks again for your feedback! Our next big update is on the 30th and that will have a new ship added plus tons of player feedback added.

While we don't currently intend to include any ships from Star Control I, II and III into Star Control: Origins at this time

I'm curious as to the reasons for this, especially since many people will consider them iconic for the melee even if they won't be appearing in the story (apart from the Cruiser, of course). I can think of a few good possible reasons - part of the agreement with FF & PR3, the expectation that the playerbase will do it themselves, or simply focusing on things that are more important for the initial release - but if it's something you're willing to share, I would be interested to know which of those it is (or if it's some other reason that I didn't think of).

While we don't currently intend to include any ships from Star Control I, II and III into Star Control: Origins at this time

I'm curious as to the reasons for this, especially since many people will consider them iconic for the melee even if they won't be appearing in the story (apart from the Cruiser, of course). I can think of a few good possible reasons - part of the agreement with FF & PR3, the expectation that the playerbase will do it themselves, or simply focusing on things that are more important for the initial release - but if it's something you're willing to share, I would be interested to know which of those it is (or if it's some other reason that I didn't think of).

Yeah, this is a major disappointment right out of the gate. Carrying previous ships forward has been an established practice in the series, it seems rather arbitrary and wrong to just decide not to do it. Please reconsider.

There are several reasons why Stardock would not focus on classic ships for release.

Development cost. Origins will have its own aliens with their own ships, Frogboy mentioned about 28 at release. Ur-Quan Masters had 25, Kessari Quadrant introduced 12. That's 37 ships for which they would have to create models, weapon effects, sounds, artwork, etc. That would increase both development costs and push back the release of the game.

To not steal Ghost of the Precursors thunder. GotP is the sequel to UQM, if Stardock would have the classic ships in the game before GotP released it would be one selling point less for that game.

Paul and Fred asked Stardock to not use the aliens because they wanted to make their own sequel.

Royalty fee. Stardock has a license to use the classic aliens, but they have to pay Paul and Fred for that. If the ships were part of the base game it would be rather difficult to determine how much Paul and Fred would receive from sales of the game.

I also imagine that SC2 managed to carry over the ships because its game engine was more or less the same as SC1.

Keep in mind I do not work for Stardock and most of this is speculation on my part.

Yeah, those were all reasons I'd considered. It would be useful to know which was the actual reason, though.

I think #1 is pretty much a given. When push comes to shove, the game clearly does not need the original ships (except the Cruiser...) to release, so obviously the priority will be on those that are needed for the SC:O story. We know that #3 is also a factor, but the impression I had was that this was mostly a case of not doing a Kessari Quadrant and continuing their story without them rather than not being able to throw the ships in purely for Fleet Battles purposes. This impression might be wrong.

For #2, I'm inclined to think that the main selling point for GotP is likely to be the story, and FF and PR3 have shown in the past that they're not overly concerned about the ships being used for non-commercial purposes. (Granted, SC:O would be using them for commercial purposes, but nevertheless, the classic ships will already be competing with UQM, Kessari Quadrant for twelve of them, and potentially any versions of Timewarp that might still be playable on modern machines. Depending on how moddable SC:O turns out to be, too, it might not be long until a SC:O mod with the classic ships shows up, although again, that probably files under "non-commercial" while if Stardock did it it would probably classify as commercial use.)

Regardless, knowing the reasoning might be an indication of what might happen in the future. If reasons 2 and/or 3 are the primary reasoning, then it's probably safe to say that we won't see Stardock doing those ships. If reasons 1 and/or 4 are primary, then we might see them in the future as DLC (resolving the royalties issue, as FF and PR3 can then get a hefty chunk of the royalties of the DLC) or as FLC if FF and PR3 are inclined to regard FLC as non-commercial use.

Brad has said several times that the primary reason for that was to not interfere with Paul & Fred's ability to continue their own universe, and their own story. He also mentioned that he feels as though it is their story, they created it, and in his mind they own it no matter what the law might technically say. He owns it, and could have used it all, but chose not too because Paul & Fred were a big influence on him going into game design. I have the impression that the main reason for it was that he would have felt like a complete jerk by just ignoring Paul & Fred's pleas to leave their story alone so that they could finish it themselves. They've been thinking about "Star Control III" their whole lives, and he didn't want to take that away from them. He felt confident that he could succeed without doing that, so he didn't.

That really says a lot about him too me, he seems like a good person too have made that decision. He owns it, and he could have done whatever he wanted with it. But chose not too because of his respect for Paul & Fred and for "artists" and what should be the "IP" of the original artist but often isn't. Just look at the newly divided Star Trek universe, now split between CBS and Paramount... and what a disaster that now is. Star Trek is probably dead and ruined forever by the businessmen because of that split.

While we don't currently intend to include any ships from Star Control I, II and III into Star Control: Origins at this time

I'm curious as to the reasons for this, especially since many people will consider them iconic for the melee even if they won't be appearing in the story (apart from the Cruiser, of course). I can think of a few good possible reasons - part of the agreement with FF & PR3, the expectation that the playerbase will do it themselves, or simply focusing on things that are more important for the initial release - but if it's something you're willing to share, I would be interested to know which of those it is (or if it's some other reason that I didn't think of).

Yeah, this is a major disappointment right out of the gate. Carrying previous ships forward has been an established practice in the series, it seems rather arbitrary and wrong to just decide not to do it. Please reconsider.

I'm going to try and look at this a bit differently, the disapointment i feel is from the fact that people is longing for the ships that was so well designed in SC2, now... I haven't seen or played the final version of SCO yet, the ships and sound is still in betaform as i understand it, so i will not give an in depth opinion yet as they are still working on all aspects of the game as we know, but i say leave out the original ships, after all, Paul and Fred is busy with a new Star Control as well, let them bring them back the way they intend on doing it, after all they designed those ships so it would be natural for them to bring them back into the new Star Control they will be making

...however...

If Stardock can make ships as uniqely and exciting as was created in Star control 2, then the majority of the concern would be solved, as now we'd be getting newly designed ships, and when Paul and Fred brings out their Star Control we'll have the old ships again as well in their Star Control, i don't see the problem.

The Ur Quan Dreadnought is already available in the Steam workshop. I would imagine that it won't be long at all before the players have provided all of the ships of the original games to be used in Fleet Battles.

Brad has said several times that the primary reason for that was to not interfere with Paul & Fred's ability to continue their own universe, and their own story. He also mentioned that he feels as though it is their story, they created it, and in his mind they own it no matter what the law might technically say. He owns it, and could have used it all, but chose not too because Paul & Fred were a big influence on him going into game design. I have the impression that the main reason for it was that he would have felt like a complete jerk by just ignoring Paul & Fred's pleas to leave their story alone so that they could finish it themselves. They've been thinking about "Star Control III" their whole lives, and he didn't want to take that away from them. He felt confident that he could succeed without doing that, so he didn't.

That really says a lot about him too me, he seems like a good person too have made that decision. He owns it, and he could have done whatever he wanted with it. But chose not too because of his respect for Paul & Fred and for "artists" and what should be the "IP" of the original artist but often isn't. Just look at the newly divided Star Trek universe, now split between CBS and Paramount... and what a disaster that now is. Star Trek is probably dead and ruined forever by the businessmen because of that split.

Oh, I'm aware of that, and have a lot of respect for him because of that. (Heck, one possibility is that it was probably possible, once Stardock owned the rights to the SC2 aliens, to transfer them back to FF and PR3 in their entirety.)

However, the impression I had was that it was why the SC:O story was set in a parallel universe rather than being part of the UQM universe (in addition to Stardock declaring that the Kessari Quadrant universe was a separate parallel universe, albeit one that was indistinguishable to the GotP universe from a human perspective up to the destruction of the Sa-Matra). Having the ships in Fleet Battles would not be hindering FF and PR3's ability to create their own story - they would just be additional options in Fleet Battles.

Now, it's possible Brad, FF, and PR3 think differently - but this is why I'm curious as to just what the motivation was. We know why they're not using those aliens in SC:O's story mode, but it's guesswork at this point as to why we're not seeing them in Fleet Battles.

Now, it's possible Brad, FF, and PR3 think differently - but this is why I'm curious as to just what the motivation was. We know why they're not using those aliens in SC:O's story mode, but it's guesswork at this point as to why we're not seeing them in Fleet Battles.

The short version is that Fred and Paul intended to one day (and that day has arrived) return to the Ur-Quan universe. We didn't want to try to sew confusion with which story is "canon". Short answer: THEIR story is canon for all things Ur-Quan.

Now, with regards to the ships, we could, because we have a license, add them to Super-Melee or something. But they would never be part of the main story because they're not in this universe any more than Space Cows are in our universe.